Is your HR efficiently managing the three 3 Es?

SONIPAT, INDIA: How are new age HR leaders managing the 3 Es—employees, expectations and e-space?

The topic was discussed at the recently concluded 2nd HR Conclave titled Managing the Three Es: Expectations, Employees and E-Space, hosted by the Center for Leadership & Change, OP Jindal Global University in association with Career Development and Placement Division supported by HR Club of Jindal Global Business School.

Disruptive also refers to the paradigm shift that the HR professionals are currently experiencing due to the changing technologies and market needs, said, Chaitali Mukherjee, Managing Principal, Leadership and Talent Consulting Practice, Korn Ferry India.

Dayanand Allapur, Vice President and Head of Human Resources, Capagemini Business Services, said “Whether we see it as a disruption or opportunity, technology has changed lives forever and HR professionals have to be tuned to adapt to the changing world.”

He noted, “Just by looking at how the smart phone and flooding of apps have changed the way people read or buy their clothes, displacing thousands of people from their traditional business set up in the process, can explain how disruptive technology can be. Adapting to new-age technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence is the need of the hour.”

Similarly, managing diversity in the workforce in terms of gender, age or nationality are some of the other challenges for the HR professionals of today, said Deepak Chawla, Head, Human Resource, Reliance Infrastructure.

Being the custodian of an organization's culture, HR professionals today face the huge challenge of offering customised approach to fulfil the needs of the employees with different culture and capabilities, said Sandeep Chaudhary, Practice Leader, Compensation Consulting, Asia Pacific, Aon Hewitt.

HR experts asserted that with advancing technology, managing diversity and building capability to deal with disruptive technologies of the future are foremost challenges for the human resource professionals of today.

In this context, the conclave saw three plenary sessions. The first session was on Defining the New Age Workforce and the Contours of Changing Technologies, followed by a session on the The impact of the ever expansive E-space on employees and their expectations-how easy or difficult to meet? while the third revolved around the theme Expectations from the workforce- an organizational perspective.

According to the experts balancing the three Es in any organization becomes an imminent imperative. They argued that while conventional wisdom may provide a few answers, chances are that un-conventional paradigms will have to be found and exploited. Both the parameters as well as the drivers of success will have to be re-calibrated and re-defined.

In lieu of this, Sanjeev P Sahni, Principal Director, Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences (JIBS), said, “HR is a strategic partner and the face of any organization. HR should not be seen as a cost but as an investment and organizations have to be careful not to let the emerging, interactive and innovative technologies diminish its importance.”